Customer Stories

The organisations we work with – from local voluntary groups and start-up businesses, to national charities and government departments – all strive to improve the communities they serve. Regardless of what type of funding is sought, whether it is for the arts, health and social welfare, housing, transport, education or local business development, we support organisations at every stage of the funding process in order to fully realise their porjects.

GRANTfinder enables its users to discover funding opportunities they may not have had the time to source themselves. This easy access to funding has meant that over the years, our users have discovered millions of pounds worth of funding for projects that would not have been possible without our tools, as well as support to help bridge the gap between project ideas and grants.

At GRANTfinder, we work closely with our customer base and many of these relationships have developed into valuable long-term partnerships which help better inform and develop our products and services in a way that benefits all of our customers.

Video

Karen Lewis, Research and Strategic Bidding Manager at the University of Northampton, talks about how her team benefit from using GRANTfinder.

Subscribing to GRANTfinder has secured Caerphilly County Borough Council £100,000 in 2017 alone

To read more positive comments from our customers, view the testimonial section below.

Or see how we could help your organisation with services we offer.

"The Newsflash option is invaluable and saves a great deal of time in searching for current funding.We also use the deadline service and this enables us to contact funders directly in order to establish how much funding they have left as quite often some funds can be undersubscribed.

In the past 3 years my team has secured over £15 million in grants for the Local Authority, local schools and voluntary sector partners in Bolton. Most of this has been generated as a result of GRANTfinder services."

Karen Morrell, Corporate External Funding Team, Wakefield Council

"As the Corporate External Funding Team, we could not imagine doing our job without this facility. It enables the team and all funding related officers within the council to carry out their function without having to search the numerous funders websites for information. It is a very time efficient funding resource which we would recommend to other authorities."

"The portal is straightforward and synthesises the relevant information well into useful headlines which enable our colleagues and partners to cut through the detail, it catches their eye long enough for them to decide whether or not to read on.

We would certainly recommend GRANTfinder to other public sector organisations such as ourselves. We have generated more income that it has ever cost us, through successful grant applications found on GRANTfinder."

"We had always received grant queries from other organisations, community groups and individuals, but GRANTfinder allowed us to have a streamlined, ordered process for dealing with such enquiries – it was also infinitely quicker and less time consuming.

More importantly, it gives us options that we would never have arrived at independently, offering far more choice and extra opportunities to our customers. It’s revolutionised the way we do things, and has been a very positive investment."

Kay Francis, European & External Funding Officer, Powys County Council

"GRANTfinder is a valuable resource and of paramount importance to use. Due to the nature of our work, we rely upon the provision of comprehensive and up-to-date funding information which helps us to identify schemes of funding support for potential projects. We find the GRANTfinder Newsflash emails very informative and know that the specialist research team are there to help us if we ever need them."

Matt Stockwell, Senior Regeneration Officer, Wigan Council

"GRANTfinder has given us tools to enable the quick and easy identification of funding opportunities as well as the support needed to develop these applications.

The GRANTfinder system generally is constantly developing and improving. Specifically, we find the newsflashes fantastic as a way of keeping abreast of opportunities. The service has always been prompt and professional. "

Sally Hoare, Partnership and Funding Officer, Broadland DC

"The GRANTfinder system gives us another channel through which even more projects become a reality. Over the years, this resource has helped to bring in a considerable amount of money to ensure community projects have moved from aspiration to completion."

Veronique Poutrell, External Funding Manager, East Sussex County Council

"This product has enabled the funding team to carry out a large number of searches. The system is up-to-date and reliable, and friendly staff are always at hand should support be required. We have always found GRANTfinder to be the best out there, in terms of efficiency and value for money."

Chris Scally, External Funding and Development Manager, Dorset CC

"The benefit of this service is that officers throughout the authority have an efficient way of accessing relevant information on funding opportunities. In addition, I have always found the GRANTfinder staff very helpful and receptive to constructive feedback about their services."

Julie Hewitt, Norfolk Arts and Events Service, Norfolk County Council

"GRANTfinder is a very useful tool for us to help direct the arts and community organisations, groups and artists with whom we work towards sources of funding. The bulletins which come in regularly on new deadlines, schemes and initiatives are also a great source of information for us to disseminate to, for example, the Norfolk Arts Forum, a body of over 600 arts and community organisations. The information we can get in "one hit" from GRANTfinder would take much more time and effort to source without the service."

"In GRANTfinder I have found a tool that will support growth and one that I can trust. It saves time – as it provides all the information you need in one place.

GRANTfinder and RESEARCHconnect provide me with an efficient and effective way to identify funding opportunities. POLICYfinder supports this with the policy behind the request for funding and keeps track of where policy changes happen."

Steve Rose, Chief Executive, Catalyst Stockton-on-Tees

"Being able to offer GRANTfinder as a service to our clients has given us the ability to connect with a much wider audience than we otherwise would not have access to. We have already secured over £258,000 of funding in only 18 months thanks to opportunities that we only found through GRANTfinder"

"After using GRANTfinder for a little over 12 months, it has now become an essential tool for our fundraising team. We have been able to identify funders for a number of our projects and have secured over £100,000 in grants during the last 6 months alone."

"We have been a client of GRANTfinder for three years and have found the system to be invaluable for helping local voluntary groups access funding. It is very straightforward to use and encompasses a wide area of subjects for funding needs. Over the last financial year we have secured £245,084 of funding as a direct result of GRANTfinder searches."

"The GRANTfinder website is our main source of funding news, including information on new grants, notification of upcoming deadlines and news on recent policy and research.

The GRANTfinder team have been extremely helpful in supporting us in getting the very best out of the website and they always welcome feedback on potential areas for improvement and development."

Eileen Hayes, Community Development Officer, Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

"GRANTfinder is an indispensable tool and a valued resource for the development support MVDA offers to voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) across Middlesbrough. The excellent search tool is supported by an update notification, news bulletins and resource material. It is an elementary resource for our strategic and grassroots work and for providing up to date information which supports new opportunities for VCOs and partnership work. It is backed up with excellent customer service and technical support & training. We would certainly recommend it."

Trisha Napier, Centre Manager, Hunts Forum of Voluntary Organisations

"I’ve been on the new GRANTfinder site and wow – what a lot of information!

The new homepage is full of easy-to-read and relevant funding news, but I think that one of my favourite parts is the ‘Library’ tab. There are such a lot of useful guides, these will not only help me, but also our members to look at not only setting up a new group but also business plans, marketing and grant funding.

The search area is simple to use, without the need to worry as it almost leads you by the hand."

John Heaslip, Chief Executive - Business in the Community

"The GRANTfinder database has been a key part of our business for over 15 years. It helps our organisation not only identify funding for projects we may be considering but it also helps us to keep abreast of policy decisions, either at national or European level, which may affect how we operate in the future. The support we receive from GRANTfinder is second to none.

Having access to GRANTfinder also allows us to add significant value to the services we offer to our member organisations who may be seeking funding to expand, train their staff, undertake new marketing initiatives or develop a new product. In short, I consider GRANTfinder to be a 'must have'."

Fiona Robertson, Co-Leader, Community Opportunity SIFE.

"We have recently been successful in applying for a grant of £1800 from the Sauter Charitable Trust and will finally be beginning an advanced training course for the youths in Malawi at the start of May. On behalf of myself, the team at Community Opportunity SIFE and all of the beneficiaries in Malawi, we would like to say a very sincere thank you for your generosity, time and kindness. This has made such a huge difference to the lives of everyone that we help, and has ultimately secured our project's success."

Sue Scott, former Funding Projects Manager, Groundwork UK

"GRANTfinder has delivered to Groundwork a comprehensive database of public, private and charitable grant-making sources with a multifunctional search engine. The functionality of GRANTfinder is second to none. Functions such as the imminent funding deadlines and email alerts ensure funding opportunities are brought to your attention without effort. GRANTfinder remains the funding search engine of choice for the Groundwork federation."

"I am thrilled to report the success of the introduction of the GRANTfinder search package within the Diocese of Llandaff. On a regular basis I am receiving telephone calls and emails from representatives of some of our 250 churches who have received generous (and often unexpected) grant assistance towards their projects."

"I am delighted with the usability of GRANTfinder and strongly recommend it to other organisations considering investing in a grant database. The funders appearing on the database are wide-ranging (from small local funders up to vast European ones) and I am particularly impressed with the reports produced, displaying the selected funders."

Development Team, National Museums Liverpool

"GRANTfinder is our first point of call for compiling grant prospect lists and gathering information about awards. It has informed us about grants we were unaware of before and we utilise the email alerts fully, which helps us to keep on top of deadlines. We have been using GRANTfinder for around five years and we strongly recommend it."

Sue Heil, Resources Support Officer, The Church of England Diocese of Manchester

"The Diocese of Manchester uses GRANTfinder as an aid to search for buildings and community grants. The system gives us the maximum flexibility to assist our parishes. The staff in your offices are always helpful and respond quickly to our questions. We feel that it is the best solution on the market to meet our needs."

"We trialled GRANTfinder 4 Education and were particularly impressed by how intuitive the system’s interface was to use and how the individual user experience could be tailored according to need. At the end of the trial, Durham chose to subscribe to all 3 of the GRANTfinder 4 Education platforms because of the value they add to our research applications and their excellent value for money.

We look forward to forging a close working partnership with Idox and to the possibilities for growth and development in the future."

Dr Jacob Sweiry, Head of Research Metrics, Office of the Vice Provost (Research), University College London

"Our key criteria were capability to search for up-to-date funding opportunities, sharing of information across defined groups and the wider communities at UCL, and to deliver these in a cost-effective manner. GRANTfinder 4 Education delivered on these key properties.

As we move forward in developing our research management information systems, flexibility in the integration of funding opportunities tools into our systems is of fundamental importance. Here again, Idox indicated their willingness to work with us to explore our requirements and to support the development of this integration."

James Scorey, Research, Planning and External Funding Manager, Cardiff and Vale College

"GRANTfinder has provided us with unprecedented visibility of the market and access to current and historical grant and funding opportunities. Having such access to the volume of relevant data provided by the service has assisted us in effectively planning, steering and managing our future plans.

GRANTfinder continues to play an important function in easily identifying new opportunities and this tool is an important part of our future plans."

Lucy Scott, Post Award & Grants Officer, Leeds Beckett University

"We have recently taken the decision to renew our GRANTfinder 4 Education licence for a third successive year as we remain impressed by the breadth of content found across the funding database, and find the tools available for sharing and acting on opportunities intuitive and easily navigable. The number of academic staff actively engaged with the platform continues to grow, with analytics of use identifying identification of large scheme opportunities alongside more localised smaller pots of funding through the system. Centrally we are using the service to horizon scan and produce briefings for future funding opportunities and disseminate opportunities in a much more targeted manner. Feedback is highly positive as we continue to roll the system out across our academic community."

Gill King, Funding Opportunities Officer, University of Hull

"Our decision to subscribe to GRANTfinder 4 Education was influenced by the wide range of content available through the system, its ease of use, presentation of information and the ability to share information quickly and easily. Users are benefitting in a variety of ways from the system’s functionality and flexibility of use, as well as the range of opportunities contained within it, from local to EU level and beyond."

Gideon Capie, European Funding Office Manager, University of Gloucestershire

"We have found GRANTfinder to be an excellent online resource in pooling a wide range of funding opportunities. We have used a number of other subscription services, as well as free-to-use resources, and having made comparisons with these, have found that GRANTfinder contained all the opportunities. In addition, GRANTfinder contains many more opportunities for other types of educational projects as well as the more traditional research ones. GRANTfinder gathers all of the opportunities into one highly accessible place."

"GRANTfinder is a key tool to developing enterprise and generating income. The schools I train in fundraising are so pleased to hear about it. The funds are out there - we just need to access them and the first step is to know how to access them."

"GRANTfinder has proved to be a user-friendly, effective and rapid tool, both for scoping funding options across the widest possible range of subjects, and for detailed reviews of funding sources. The newsflash alerts, weekly update bulletins and special features have proved to be particularly useful on an ongoing basis.

We would have no hesitation in recommending GRANTfinder to other colleagues in Higher Education."

"I have been in post and taken over the running of the GRANTfinder account for the last two years and have secured approximately £1.8 million in funding for projects that we have worked with, and this is just our team, the Tower Fund Grants Team.

We use GRANTfinder on a daily basis and, as a team of three, find it very easy to use. I would recommend this product to any organisation as it has proved time and time again to be an asset to our team. We would not have been able to deliver on so many projects for our communities without it."

It opens up new sources of funding/ opportunities that we may otherwise not be aware of

It provides the opportunity for us to share sources with other parts of the business

We are maximising our fundraising time

We can refine searches which are up-to-date and timely

We would recommend purchasing this service to others, especially for those where services need to obtain external income."

Dele Ryder, Partnership and Fundraising Manager, A2 Dominion Housing

"A2 Dominion has been using GRANTfinder since 2010 and I have found it to be an invaluable tool in my role as Partnership and Fundraising Manager.

The inclusion of the corresponding policy information alongside the funding results is a great development on the new site -it offers me a broader perspective on the where, why and general rationale of funding streams. Having this information so accessible makes it so much easier for me to draft and write bids. I would absolutely recommend GRANTfinder for anyone who is tasked with looking for and applying for funding."

"Having this tool will eliminate all the stress related to searching for organisations that have funds and are actively receiving applications. It can take hours of time looking for grants and obtaining all the relevant information - with GRANTfinder it is right there at your fingertips. The added ability to be able to run a report and export that information into a word document which can then in turn be emailed to a recipient is genius. The Community Investment Strategy is a major piece of work and we know that by using GRANTfinder it will make it so much easier."

"I have now been using GRANTfinder for a number of years and always regarded it as a valuable resource. Listening to user feedback has helped Idox shape the improvements that have substantively improved the website and I would commend the service to anyone who regularly needs to comprehensively search for the best sources of funding. Since the addition of new user-friendly features, GRANTfinder is much improved and navigation considerably easier."

“We have found the use of this tool incredibly helpful whilst building our trust fundraising staff team and income line. Although we were aware of the larger funders available for our particular service user group, our subscription to GRANTfinder has enabled us to develop our knowledge and data on funders throughout the country whom we are eligible for application.

In addition, the email updates have helped the more junior members of the team broaden their awareness of the community sector. We have also appreciated the webinars available to the team to assist in training staff to utilise the search tools.

I would highly recommend a subscription to a developing and ambitious trust or foundation’s fundraising team.”

“In GRANTfinder I have found a tool that will support growth and one that I can trust. It provides a place to find all things trusts and foundations are seeking with the added benefits of relevant policy and supporting information. It saves time – as it provides all the information you need in one place – and when you are one person on your own, that’s important. It provides good quality searches and the reports are easy to generate and share. Newsflashes are e-mailed to me and I am alerted to deadlines and new funding opportunities – I find this really useful.

The Research Help Desk – just one of the many supports available to us – has been great and really helpful. It has given me the assurance that timely answers are only a phone call or email away.”

“After using GRANTfinder for a little over 12 months, it has now become an essential tool for our fundraising team. We have been able to identify funders for a number of our projects and have secured over £100,000 in grants during the last 6 months alone.

The alerts that the software generates allows us to easily share information with our colleagues outside the department and have prompted the development of new project proposals for funding applications.

The quality of the information provided and the back-up of the team at Idox has allowed us to develop a higher-quality application which has improved our success rate.”

Mike Coker, CEO, Harrow Carers

"We have shared our knowledge of GRANTfinder with other centres in our region to help us bid for funds which are only available for working across a wider area and many centres have improved their success rates and increased their income as a result. The GRANTfinder team have been very supportive, providing guidance and training to help us get the most out of it and the telephone support desk is very knowledgeable with the latest information. Having used a range of funding search tools I have found GRANTfinder the most comprehensive and up-to-date tool available. The cost may seem high to small organisations but like anything, you get what you pay for and if you use it well it will pay for itself."

"GRANTfinder gives us the ability to quickly run searches, produce reports, monitor the daily news alerts and match up new funding streams with potential applicants already on our books. We can also capture content from the GRANTfinder weekly bulletin for our own newsletters. GRANTfinder has opened our eyes to the broad and varied range of business funds that are in the system."

Edinburgh Leisure

"As a result of the service GRANTfinder provides, Edinburgh Leisure has successfully applied for several grants within the last three years. Having used several other online resources, we believe GRANTfinder to be a superior resource and would recommend it to other VCSE organisations."

"Mansfield BID invested in the GRANTfinder service to help businesses in the town centre looking for funding opportunities. Working in real time and with the ability to input precise searches, we help look for a raft of funding and grant opportunities and receive the latest funding alerts which are then communicated to BID levy payers. .

Businesses in the town have voiced positive opinions on how GRANTfinder is of real benefit to Mansfield and its individuals, providing access to potential funding that generic internet searches just cannot provide."

Laura Cunliffe, Research Team Leader, Development Office, National Museums Liverpool

"GRANTfinder is our first port of call for compiling grant prospect lists and gathering information about awards. It has informed us about grants we were unaware of before and we utilise the system alerts fully, which helps us to keep on top of deadlines. National Museums Liverpool (NML) has been using GRANTfinder for around six years and we strongly recommend it, as it has helped us secure funding from organisations we otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of."